‘Only The River Flows Review: An Elusive Chinese Serial Killer Procedural Pays Homage To Film Noir
Only the River Flows ( He Biande Kuo Wu ), an intense vintage film noir wrapped in creaking celluloid and old tapes, follows an obsessive detective's long and elusive quest in 1990s provincial China and its repercussions against a small town. with many secrets hidden beneath the surface.
Written and directed by Shujun Wei ( Gone with the Wind ), the film is less suspenseful thriller than puzzle homage to the noir genre itself, with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville, Chinatown and Memories of Murder . But more than that, this is a picture of Chinese society before the recent economic boom and after the Tiananmen Square protests, when citizens lived in depression and despair.
only rivers flow
Conclusion A retro mystery that folds in on itself.
Part of this life is revealed in the hands of Ma Zhe (Ylon Zhu), the head detective of his city's criminal investigation department, who, in true cinematic style, has moved into an abandoned movie theater with Ma's office. designer booth. . (The setting is similar to 21 Jump Street , where the movie theater is a church.)
It's a fitting premise for a story set in the pre-digital age, when most technology was still analog and images or audio recordings were things you could manipulate with your hands. These two mediums will provide key evidence in Ma Che's search for a killer hiding in a local river, leaving several victims on his trail, including an old woman, an abandoned poet, and an innocent child.
Wei and co-writer Chunlei Kang adapted their screenplay from Hua Yu's novel, and the tone they initially took with their material, aside from the gruesome murders, was pretty light. Ma Zhe's Keystone Kops crew would rather flirt or play ping-pong than do actual police work, and the film's opening scenes are filled with a bit of social drama.
But as the investigation progresses, Ma Che's obsession only grows. It follows a prime suspect, known only as "the madman," who bonds with the first victim and continues to elude him. And he follows other clues that lead him to unknowingly uncover the hidden lives of his community, whether it's a relationship between two poetry lovers or a barber trying to hide his identity from society.
If the many murders in Only the River Flows were what kept the story going, they finally paid off when McGuffin discovered something deeper and deeper about China in the mid-1990s. The darkness deepens as Ma Zhe's personal turmoil suggests an impending birth. a child who may be mentally challenged arrives on the scene, causing a major conflict between the detective and his pregnant wife, Bai Jie (Chloe Maayan).
Getting more and more off track, Ma Zhe was scared and embarrassed by what was about to happen; was the "madman" he was chasing no different than his future son? Shyness and secrecy seem to be the guiding principles in a time and place where obedience is paramount, and Wei has a keen eye for how conforming to social norms can drive some people. Even if Ma Zhe caught the murderer, or at least the man he believed to be the murderer, it was a bittersweet victory, a source of personal pain despite his public victory.
Shot by the talented Chengma Zhiyuan ( Fire on the Plain ) in a vintage style that's deliberately bleak and tinged with various shades of mud, the film's aesthetic echoes its somewhat dull texture, which doesn't make it your place. . But like the investigation itself, the meaning of Only the River Flows gradually comes into focus as the story unfolds, leaving the viewer in the same abyss as the detective;
